Fashion East RTW Spring 2023

Lulu Kennedy, the founder of talent incubator Fashion East, has given many young designers fashion a home for their collections and ideas. Its list includes Charlotte Knowles, Nensi Dojaka, Roksanda Ilincic and many more, all designers who are now on the official London Fashion Week calendar.

So it's no surprise that the three new designers she represents this season — Standing Ground , Jawara Alleyne and Karoline Vitto — all decided to focus on the idea of ​​home away from home.

Michael Stewart, the man behind Standing Ground, held his ground by delivering a self-contained presentation before the tracks shared, which has become a catchphrase for Fashion East designers. His models stood like sculptural columns in the middle of an empty concrete room in draped dresses.

"I draw inspiration from very ancient landscapes and artifacts, particularly from Ireland, 'where I'm from, they're scattered across the landscape,” Stewart said.

Jamaican-born designer Alleyne wrote a story around his collection on a yacht that s crashes on a pirate ship to comment on the current crop crash happening.

"I feel like it's just appropriate for London and the state it's in we are globally in the world right now where everything collides from Brexit, COVID to the dying queen,” the creator said backstage.

The light and airy chiffon clothes he showed were an ode to the clothes that many people carry home country.

"The way we wear clothes in the Caribbean is very casual and we have a lot of recycling, reuse and ingenuity in the way we live,” Alleyne said, adding that he collects fabrics from friends, haberdasheries and vintage shops.

Brazilian designer Vitto called London home when she moved over five years ago to study at Central Saint Martins. His work has always been personal before being lucrative. She founded her brand in 2020 and has since strived to create more sensual clothing for tall women.

"Brazilians are known for showing their skin and thinking about beach bodies, which has always been a problem for me when I was growing up,” Vitto said candidly, sharing that she was a size 14 or 16 since she gravitated between the two.

Her mission was to figure out how the clothes felt on her body before she could gift them to her friends and family.

"It started from that portability experiment that turned into an exercise in picture,” she said.

Vitto works primarily with viscose and silk jersey for movement — she wants her customers to move freely while adopting their body shape.